138 M. de Quatrefages on 



we might at once raise some grave objections to the conse- 

 quences which Dr. Haast draws from them with regard to the 

 antiquity of the extinction of the Moas. 



It is very true that the great Mammalia mentioned by Dr. 

 Haast no longer exist and are known to us only by their 

 remains. But with them lived other species which survived 

 them, and are even still living. The monks of St. Gall still 

 ate the urus in the fifteenth century ; the reindeer, in Pallas^s 

 time, descended in winter to the shores of the Caspian Sea ; 

 the aurochs and the elk still inhabit Poland ; the chamois, 

 the ibex, and the marmot are close to us. Why should all 

 these species of Moa have been condemned to perish with the 

 geological period that witnessed their appearance? 



Dr. Haast no doubt would object to me that the European 

 Mammalia of which I have mentioned the names, and others 

 wliich it is useless to enumerate, have generally migrated 

 either in longitude or in altitude. But, even without bringing 

 the action of man into play, this change of habitat was im- 

 posed upon them by the transformation of the nature of the 

 climate. Tliis had become continental, instead of insular as 

 it Avas in glacial times. In New Zealand this was not the 

 case. Whatever may have been the movements of elevation 

 or depression of its land*, it remained isolated in the middle 

 of the sea, and its climate cannot have varied, at least in the 

 lower regions, except within very narrow limits. Dr. Haast 

 himself, although starting from other data than those indi- 

 cated by me, insists upon considerations of the same kind, 

 and shows very well that, in this great island, the extension 

 of the glaciers by no means involves the existence of a climate 

 much more rigorous than that of the present day f. The 

 general conditions of existence remaining the same, what 

 reason can the New-Zealand palseontologist give for regarding 

 the extinction of all the Moas as necessary ? 



In all his writings, published to the present day, which 

 have come to my knowledge, Dr. Haast maintains the general 

 opinions indicated above}. It would seem that they have 



* Tlie ' Transactions of the New Zealand Institute ' contain several 

 memoirs explanatory uf tlie glacial phenomena of which New Zealand 

 was the theatre. I need not dwell upon these, and I shall only call 

 attention to those of MM. Travers and Dobson, who, in expounding then* 

 own views, ha^e summed up those of their confreres (see " Notes on Dr. 

 Haast's supposed Pleistocene Crlaciation of New Zealand," by W. F. L. 

 Travers, vol. vii. p. 409, and " On the Date of the Glacial Period," by 

 A. Dudley Dobson, ibid. p. 440). But, upon this question, Dr. Haast's 

 work upon the geology of the Provinces of Canterbury and Westland 

 should especially be consulted, 



t Loc. cit. p. 72. 



X Besides the " Address," above cited. Dr. Haast has published, in the 



